uppers first

july 2, 2026

The first swing hits the upper cabinet on the left of the sink and glances. The sledge just skids off the door.

Motherfucker.

I take a breath. Adjust the grip. Feet apart. Look at the cabinet like I’m looking at a face.

The second swing goes through.

The door splits down the middle and the top half spins on the hinge and hangs there. Inside is a spice rack. Turmeric. Bay leaves. Cardamom I never used. I swing again and the whole cabinet detaches from the wall along the top edge and folds down over the counter like a jaw dropping open. The spice jars go in a shower.

I don’t stop.

The cabinet beside it. This one’s bigger and the swing rings off the frame and I have to hit it three times before the face comes off. The face comes off in one piece with the door still attached and slides down the counter and lands on the floor. Under it, an ancient jar of honey. Crystallized. He liked honey in his coffee. Fuck him.

The next swing takes the honey jar too. Glass goes everywhere and I don’t care. There’s a fine gold spray up the wall.

I look at what I’ve done. Two cabinets down. Six to go.

I’m sweating already. Kitchen’s hot even with the window open. It’s July. I don’t remember opening the window but the window’s open. I remember opening the door for the sledge. I remember standing in the middle of the room and looking at everything for a full minute, three-sixty degrees, and thinking start with the uppers, on the left, and now I’m here and there’s honey on the wall.

The next cabinet has the microwave under it. He took the microwave. Fine. That’s less mass to worry about. I aim high, put the sledge through the door face, and yank down. The door comes off with a chunk of the frame and I toss it behind me. It hits the fridge. The fridge is coming apart too but that’s later. First the uppers because you have to work top to bottom, that’s what the guy at Home Depot said, some kind of physics reason, gravity, whatever. Uppers first.

I get the third one. The fourth. The fourth had our wedding china.

I forgot. Three plates, stacked, come out of it in the swing and I watch them fall, this weird slow-motion thing where I can see them turn in the air, and they land on the tile and they crack but they don’t break because they were expensive, and I stand there for a second and look at them.

I put the sledge down and I pick up one plate and I look at it and I throw it against the wall.

That does it. That breaks it.

I pick up the other two and I do the same. The one after that I throw into the sink because I want the sound of ceramic on stainless steel. That’s a good one. That’s the best sound of the day so far.

I pick the sledge back up.

Cabinet five is the corner cabinet with the lazy Susan and the lazy Susan is the reason I loved this kitchen when we picked the house. That’s coming out. I put the sledge into the door and the door goes but the lazy Susan just spins. So I get down on the floor and I climb halfway into the cabinet and I unbolt the center post with the crescent wrench because I’m not going to let the lazy Susan defeat me. It comes out in three pieces. I set them on the floor and then I put the sledge through the shelves.

Six. Seven. Eight.

I’m crying at some point but it’s not the sad kind. It’s the physical kind, from swinging that hard for that long, my arms are shaking and my face is a mess and I haven’t stopped and I’m not going to.

The last upper takes four swings. It was reinforced. He must have replaced it at some point because it’s a different wood. I don’t remember him replacing it. Well, he replaced it, and I’m about to remove it, and now we’re even.

All the uppers are down.

I look at the room. There’s honey on the wall. There’s spice everywhere. Turmeric has landed on my forearm and it looks like a burn mark. My hands hurt. The sledge feels twice as heavy as it did an hour ago.

I sit down on the counter. Not on the floor because there’s glass all over. On the counter.

Now the counter.

I get back up and I go outside to the garage. I need the pry bar. I need a longer moment before the next thing. Not much longer. The sledge is not going down.

I stand in the garage. I breathe. My arms are shaking.

I pick up the pry bar.

I go back inside.